The Hidden Palace

I read The Golem and the Jinni when it came out and have again since. I don’t remember every detail, but I can never forget how it gave me the feeling of dwelling in an an entire and completely realized world, one that felt rich with historical details but also intimate and outside of time, one I was sad to leave. Chava and Ahmad were greenhorns in 1900 New York, and the novel was both a slow-burn love story and an immigrant tale of learning to adapt and fit in. The narrator was omniscient and a little at arm’s length. There were other story lines and secondary characters, but the focus was firmly on golem and jinni.

The Golem and the Jinni didn’t end on a cliffhanger — fortunate for the reader waiting eight years for this continuation, but not offering an obvious sequel path for the writer. And sequels/continuations are harder than they appear. Since they already have characters and a world, they seem like they should be easier than than starting anew. But they need to explain things to people who never read the first volume yet not bore those who know it very well. They need to create the experience that readers loved the first time, but do more than just repeat it. And this case, there’s the weight of thousands of readers’ expectations.

What soon becomes apparent is how differently time is handled here. The books are the same length, roughly 480 pages, but The Hidden Palace covers about 15 years, a much greater span of time than G&J. The action ranges beyond Little Syria and the Lower East Side: to Morningside Heights, to Brooklyn and most excitingly to the Ottoman Empire.

Also, there’s more people, some with only a tenuous connection to Chava or Ahmad, doing stuff of their own, including, spoiler alert, constructing a golem in their tenement apartment (as one does). There is more History: the Odessa pogroms of 1905 get a mention, as does the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. We meet Lawrence of Arabia before he was famous, and Gertrude Bell when she already was. The sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania both move the plot forward. And we see the city itself changing before the eyes of its residents, as the Manhattan Bridge is built, the first skyscrapers spring up, cars start replacing horses, women start demanding the vote.

So the feeling of The Hidden Palace was very different for me from The Golem and the Jinni: less cozy, but no less compelling. Chava and Ahmad were less at the center of the action, as their differences drove them apart, and they began to pursue divergent paths in this new New York, though events will bring them back together.

The plot is a thing of wonder, as the different story lines start to converge in ways both logical and surprising, and there are many delights along the way. I particularly enjoyed the stubborn orphan Kreindel, the wisecracking bicycle messenger Toby, and that Chava managed to put herself through college and become a teacher of Home Economics, which seems both absurd and completely right.

Will there be a third installment? It almost seems like…maybe?

Its been eight years since Helene Weckers The Golem and the Jinni, a wondrous, beautiful work of fiction that took a simple concept in New York City near the beginning of the 20th century, a golem comes to live among humans in the Jewish quarter, while a jinni freed from centuries of captivity hides in the Syrian neighborhood and turned it into something special: a tale about immigrants, about culture wars, about unlikely friends, about Jewish mysticism, about revenge and love and friendship and kindness and much more. Its something truly special to me, finding something wonderful in the pairing of a creature who is made to serve and one who never wants to serve again, and exploring that both in terms fantastical and deeply grounded. In short, its basically a perfect book, one that works excellently on its ownbut then, Wecker announced that she had a sequel comingand who was I to turn down a return trip to this amazing world?

The Hidden Palace picks up almost immediately after the end of the first novel (indeed, if you, like me, havent read it since its original release, Id recommend a revisiting before you start this one while Wecker adds some recapping, this definitely feels like its intended almost as a direct follow-up, and works better when all of that is fresh in your mind), as the jinni Ahmad returns home from his travels and the golem Chava awaits him back home. But as the book opens, a rabbi in the neighborhood stumbles across the notes left behind by Chavas former keeper, and realizes what they might mean; simultaneously, back in Ahmads homeland, a female jinni hears about the legend of the traveling jinni bound by iron who traveled across oceans, and decides to make her way towards him.

If that sounds like the plot here is far more complicated than its predecessor, thats undeniably true and I havent even touched on a variety of other storylines here, including a young boys memories of the climax of the previous book, a standoffish orphan girl with a secret, Ahmads prickly relationship with his business partner, Chavas growing realizations about her own nature and how it will affect her life oh, and did I mention a slew of historical events, from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire to the sinking of the Titanic? Yeah, theres a lot going on in The Hidden Palace, and to some degree, its to the books detriment; while The Golem and the Jinni was remarkably tight and focused despite all of its scope (and even tighter than it first looked, given the final revelations), The Hidden Palace struggles a bit more to keep itself together, sometimes forcing its threads together a little inelegantly, or using history in a way that sometimes feels less organic and more like the quick cultural tourism of Forrest Gump. (This goes less for the fire and more for the sinking ship, for what its worth.)

Nonetheless, the plot never gets so dense that Wecker loses focus on her characters and given how many shes juggling, thats incredibly impressive. Wecker is dealing with a wide swath of people and locations, charting them over a much longer period of time than the first book (nearly 15 years), and the way she brings them all to life is never less than wondrous humane, complex, rich, and detailed. Its easy to lose yourself in the early 20th century New York that Wecker brings to life here you can almost smell the scents from Chavas Jewish bakery, or feel the heat from Ahmads furnace as he works on his intricate arts.

Which brings us back to our golem and our jinni. If the first novel used them as a way of exploring the lives of American immigrants of the time, The Hidden Palace expands on that, watching as both go from outsiders looking i to individuals who want so much more from their lives. Chava finds herself more and more aware of how women are treated in the society. Ahmad sees the flaws in the American experiment and struggles to reconcile his independence with a need for community. What began as an exploration of newcomers to the country becomes a quest for an identity thats more than just their ethnicity and origins. But even with all of that heavy symbolic lifting to do, Chava and Ahmad work as people as characters we genuinely care about. As they evolve, as they are emotionally wounded, as they find friendships or love or satisfaction or fear, its impossible not to become invested in what happens next. Whats more, Wecker manages the complicated feat of making them believable characters not in spite of their natures, but because of them while Chava and Ahmad are always understandable, its also always evident how their natures have shaped them and affected how theyve turned out.

The Hidden Palace isnt quite as good as The Golem and the Jinni its bigger, more sprawling, and more ambitious, and that sometimes means its lacking some of the focus and purity that the original could bring together. But with that being said, its still a more than worthy sequel to the book, delivering us back into that incredible world and allowing ourselves to be lost in it, catching up with these characters and seeing how their lives evolved after the book ended. And even when you think youve seen what Wecker can do, she delivers something new an oddly beautiful meeting between two kindred spirits in a basement, the careful rekindling of an old friendship, the pain of a damaged community. If you loved The Golem and the Jinni and you did, right? The Hidden Palace is a no-brainer. If its bigger and lumpier, well, its still no less full of magic, wonder, and richness to be found.

This was one of those book that you just cant put down, yet dont want to read too quickly lest it be over. The book does an excellent job of easing you back into the world even if your memory of the details in The Golem and the Jinni are a hazy as mine were. It was an absolute delight to revisit this world; everything feels so well fleshed out and the the characters and their motivations feel like real people. Were it not for the fantastical bits you might imagine this was a true story.

It was wonderful to get to spend time with the Golem and the Jinni again, and to see how their relationship evolved. I also really enjoyed the new point of view characters that were introduced. Tobys mission to unravel the mysteries in his life, and Kreindels struggles frequently kept me up reading later than I intended. Having recently been struggling with a physical injury myself; I found myself particularly identifying with the struggles that Sophia deals with, and her determination inspiring. Several points in the book were so moving that I had to pause and wipe away the tears.

Overall a fantastic followup to The Golem and the Jinni, I LOVED this book and I cant wait to see what the author writes next!

I haven’t stayed up all night to finish a book in decades. I devoured this book. Not quite as good as The Golem and the Jinni, but what can be? A truly wonderful book.
To Helene Wecker: I am too old to wait another eight years for a sequel.

Loved it. Couldn’t put it down.10 stars.will be on the lookout for this author. Hopefully with a part 3. Really great

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member